Harold Moran was haunting the doorway.

He stood inside of it like maybe it could make him invisible or like maybe something about doorways was familiar to him, calming, less empty somehow than other places. He stood there watching in the way that children do because sometimes pretending to be a part of something was easier than saying hello, and so the doorway held him up and he leaned against it wearing wrinkled black pants and a muddy white t-shirt.

Roll call went by, echoed across the floors of the gym, but Harold’s name wasn’t called because really he wasn’t supposed to be here. He was supposed to be somewhere else, in some other town or on some other planet where things were easier and where people knew his name, and instead he was here. Seven years old in a new town and seven years old in this doorway, seven years old and not on any of the clean white papers that teachers always held when they called out to other children. Harold’s name didn’t get called, but he imagined them calling it. He imagined how he would lift up his hand and say “here” and how he would be less afraid, maybe, if they just called out his name. He thought he would sit next to the red-headed girl in the lime green t-shirt and he would play catch with the boy who had band-aids on both knees. He would laugh at things that were funny and he would make friends, and every time the teacher at the front of the room clapped in excited encouragement and enthusiasm, Harold thought he would clap, too. He would clap his hands, too, and then he would have fun. Everything here seemed fun, Harold thought to himself, and everything at his new home across the street seemed strange. Sad, even. Or scary. Harold liked to pretend that, instead of spending his summer days at home across the street, he would come here and he would be on one of these lists. He liked to watch and he liked to pretend. He haunted the doorway because deep down inside he wanted to speak up. He wanted to step forward and say “My name is Harold Moran, and I’m here.”

But instead he just waited, imagined, and when the teacher at the front of the room glanced over toward the door and offered him a smile, Harold Moran didn’t know what to do. So he ran.

And the teacher followed him, and really that was how Scranton, Pennsylvania changed Harold‘s life.

*****

The screen door had swung closed hard behind the little boy and Andre stood out on the sidewalk, wondering whether he should go back to the gym or stay here and knock. He’d left Caroline with all of those kids and no real explanation, which he figured she’d have a lot to say about once he returned , and it was that knowledge that pushed him toward rapping his fingers against the chipped metal frame of the door of this house. At least this way he’d have a story to tell her, a conversation he could relay and a reason for practically sprinting away from the Boys and Girls Club like his ass was on fire. At least this way he’d have an excuse.

He carefully navigated the uprooted walkway that cut through the center of the house’s front lawn, taking a second to glance around at the mud that probably used to be grass once and the way it had been dug into, carved out, like as if someone had used their hands or a stick and had spent hours writing out oversized words in some foreign language. The front porch was empty except for a solitary wicker rocking chair that sat alone in the corner, motionless and unaffected by the slight breeze that was rolling lazily through the Tuesday morning air. Andre shifted on his feet nervously and wondered what the hell he was doing here.

He knocked and he waited, sucking in a deep breath when the voice of an old man answered, calling out “hang on” like it was a declaration of war or an order from a drill sergeant. Andre suddenly felt unkempt in his calf-length gym shorts and sky blue t-shirt, and had the ludicrous instinct to tuck the edges of his shirt into the waist band of his pants. He scratched at his forehead instead and waited patiently for somebody to show up behind the screen.

Eventually a man stepped forward, appearing like a ghost out of mist or maybe like an actor from behind a curtain, materializing out of the shadows inside the house, standing separated from Andre both by the worn out screen of the door and by his perfectly executed, hard, and disinterested expression. His face had been worn like old leather boots and his head was shaved bald, precise, clean and tan and cracked with age. He was the sort of seventy-something who seemed stronger and larger than any thirty year old man could ever dream of being, mostly because he carried himself with well-earned authority and dignity, his shoulders broad and straight and his crisp white t-shirt pulled taut over the well-defined muscles of his chest. A navy blue anchor had been stained into the skin of his forearm by a needle and was pulled long and faded from years of proud display.

Andre definitely felt like he should tuck in his shirt.

“Sir?” he began because the captain, or sergeant, or whatever he had been once, was stubbornly silent and Andre wasn’t sure how else to begin, wasn’t sure why he was even standing here like this, blubbering, young and foolish and intimidated by the knowing, suspicious look in The Captain’s eye.

“What is it?” he barked out gruffly, sniffing after the words were out of his mouth, and Andre thought this guy would’ve been a pirate in another time. Or maybe a king. And either way Andre was ill-equipped to stand up to him.

“Uh, I’m sorry to bother you, I just…” he shifted on his feet again and cleared his throat as The Captain looked him over, glanced down and frowned for a second at Andre’s unclean Sketchers. “Is there a boy living here? About seven or eight years old?” he wondered, his voice light and his eyebrows raised up high and frightened and The Captain just watched him, stared him down and readjusted the belt at his waist like he was getting ready to reach right through the screen and grab Andre by the neck. Eventually he offered up one single nod of his head, which Andre took to mean that yes there was a boy living here and who wants to know about it? He cleared his throat again, awkward, unsure, and he gestured over his shoulder toward the big brick building he’d just come from. “I work over at the Boys and Girls Club, Sir, and I’ve noticed a young boy standing in the doorway of our gym for the past few weeks and today I saw him come in here. So, um, I was just wondering if he wanted to maybe sign up or…um…” The Captain crossed his arms and tilted his head, squinting and assessing and Andre wondered if it would be considered rude of him to just turn around and run away at this point.

“Harold is my grandson, and he is not ready for socialization at this time, young man,” The Captain proclaimed and Andre felt himself nodding like a bobble head, agreeing just because it seemed so much like the thing to do with this guy. “But thank you for taking notice of his interest,” he finished and Andre thought he heard a little bit of warmth in that, and it was like God himself had reached out and patted him on the head. He kind of felt like saluting, or bowing, or maybe shouting out “Aye Aye, Sir!” but instead he just smiled and took a few steps back, waving a hand through the air like an idiot.

“Ok then,” he offered, watching in fascination as the man nodded one more time and then backed into the shadows, disappearing like he’d never even been there and Andre felt himself slump forward as if he was finally “at ease.”

He walked back to the gym slowly, considering The Captain and Harold and what exactly it meant to say that a child was not ready for socialization. He considered this house and it’s yard and why The Captain hadn’t noticed that Harold was constantly across the street instead of at home. He considered a lot of things and when Caroline stuck her hip out to the side and frowned at him, shaking her head and muttering something about him being totally useless he just waved her off and walked right by because he was considering things, thinking, and he decided that the next time he saw Harold he was going to invite him inside. Because, Andre thought, maybe the kid just didn’t want to be a seven year old soldier, and maybe his grandfather didn’t really know much about whether or not he was capable of being social. Sometimes grown ups could be wrong about things, and sometimes kids were the ones who suffered because of it.

Except the next week when Andre asked him inside Harold just shook his head, turned around, and walked away, careful and slow, leaving Andre with a frown on his face and quite a few more things to consider.

*****

“Is it just something about watching me carry heavy things around that makes you happy, Andre? Is it like your mission in life not to help, or what?”

Laughter felt like affirmation to Jim’s ears and so he shook his head, irritated, red-faced from hauling bags full of bats and balls and gloves and bases back inside the gym. He licked at his lips and he turned to glare over his shoulder once his hands were empty and propped up against his hips.

“This is hilarious to you,” he assessed and Andre just grinned into the sunshine, his arms crossed and his expression smug and totally satisfied. Jim turned to face him and pressed his lips together, nodding, accepting it because he was Jim Halpert, and usually accepting things was what he did. It was especially what he did on summer Saturday mornings at the Boys and Girls Club, because Andre was an old friend who had a unique and richly colored sense of humor that took years of getting used to, and years of learning to accept. Jim, unfortunately, was a complete expert.

“You look like you need a beer, buddy,” Andre decided in faux sympathy, patting Jim on the back. Jim nodded because that was a seriously accurate assessment. He needed like six beers, or seven, or possibly fifteen, and noon somehow felt remarkably like cocktail hour.

It had been over two years since the last time Jim had agreed to help out at the summer baseball/basketball camp that Andre ran annually, and he’d sort of purposely forgotten how grueling and overwhelming it could truly be. When Andre had appeared on his doorstep the night before begging for help, when he had explained that someone had left him hanging at the last minute, when he’d sworn that Jim was the best coach there was anyway and the kids deserved someone great to teach them to swing a bat, when he eventually in desperation promised to do Jim’s dishes and laundry for three months in payment, Jim had had a momentary lapse in judgment. He’d conveniently forgotten how early 8 AM could be on a Saturday, and also how the voices of fourteen seven year old boys could reach decibels only dogs could hear when the weather was nice and their parents were gone. He’d gotten a sudden case of amnesia, or maybe he’d gone insane for that one moment. Something had happened, had gone wrong, had flipped sideways, because he was sure that if he’d had his wits about him he would not have agreed to any of this.

Maybe he’d had mad cow disease, he thought to himself as he followed Andre across the street, his eyes fixed steadily on the sign of the only local pizza place that happened to serve beer in the middle of the afternoon. The door was noisy on its hinges and the linoleum floor seemed particularly dirty in the summer sun.

“Well I‘ll be damned,” the man behind the counter greeted loudly, “James Halpert, this is truly an honor. I haven’t seen you in months,” he accused with warmth in his tone, wiping his flour covered hands on a towel that was equally flour covered.

“Bobby, how’s it going?” Jim responded warmly, reaching out to shake the owner’s offered hand despite the mess and despite the surety of Jim’s clothes ending up covered in chalk-white finger prints.

“So, you’re back to doing this guy’s dirty laundry?” Bobby wondered good-naturedly, tipping his head toward Andre and leaning forward toward Jim conspiratorially, his elbows propped large and beefy against the metal of the lined up napkin holders. Jim chuckled and shrugged his shoulders, reaching out to push the corner of one of the napkins back into its rightful place.

“Actually he’ll be doing my dirty laundry, I think. That was part of the deal when I agreed to help him out,” Jim corrected and Bobby laughed, loud and boisterous, and Jim thought maybe this summer thing wouldn’t be as bad as he’d thought. There was something nice about the idea of coaching and then heading over to Bobby’s for a drink and a slice of cheese pizza. There was something great about the outdoor seating and the noise of whatever sporting event happened to be taking place on the old black and white television that had been haphazardly mounted in the corner of the room for the past thirty five years. There was something comfortable about Andre and Bobby and baseball and beer.

Except maybe that was just nostalgia talking.

Because Jim had had childhood summers with these same people and with this same park and pizza, running across the dusty blacktop, sweaty with a dollar bill in one hand and a basketball in the other, yelling to Bobby that he wanted extra cheese and feeling special when Bobby handed him a slice along with a free ice cream sandwich for the road. He remembered breaking his arm right outside when Chris Bellingham had shoved him off the curb, and he remembered that the first bike ride he’d ever taken alone had been to Bobby’s for a coke, dressed messily in a little league uniform with four quarters jingling in his pockets. He’d been young here, and so probably the certain affection he was feeling was more for that than for carrying the Boys and Girls Club’s grossly heavy sporting equipment every weekend across a field sprinkled with litter and weeds.

Jim was about to ask Bobby about the Pirates, about to comment on the game a few days ago, when Andre shoved an elbow into his side and said he’d be right back. Jim didn’t have much time to respond before his friend was out the door and jogging down the sidewalk, and so he followed him because curiosity was a thing more powerful than baseball or beer.

“Hey!” he heard Andre call out, his hand reaching forward to grab a kid by the shoulder, “Hey, Harold slow down a second, slow down,” and Harold came to a stop, it seemed, less because he wanted to and more because Andre had requested it. “I didn’t see you around this morning,” Andre assessed, crouching down to see Harold’s face more clearly. The boy just sort of squinted and stayed silent and it made Jim remember some things, so he stepped a little closer in interest.

Andre had told him something about this kid named Harold. He’d told him some things like how Harold never spoke and Harold never joined in and Harold seemed to stand around in doorways most of the time. He’d told him that Harold lived with a stern sort of grandfather, and that things seemed mysterious in that house. Andre was plagued by curiosity, which was a very powerful thing, and now Jim felt it tickling his skin as well, standing here and watching Harold say nothing like he maybe had no tongue at all. Eventually Andre went on because the average thirty year old had a hard time living in such complete and utter quiet.

“It was fun. We missed you,” he pointed out, “maybe next Saturday you can come over to the park and play catch.”

And still, Harold was silent.

Andre stood up straight and scratched at the back of his head, sort of perplexed and sort of thoughtful. Turning with a resigned smile that spoke volumes, in the way Andre’s smiles often did, he gestured toward the little brown haired boy.

“Jim, this is Harold. Harold, this is my good friend Jim,” Andre introduced. Jim stuck a hand out toward Harold and offered him a grin, waiting patiently while the seven year old visibly debated whether or not he should shake hands. Eventually he reached his fingers out and his hand was little and covered in dirt, rough against the flour that still lingered in the crevices of Jim’s palm.

“Nice to meet you, Harold,” Jim greeted, and Harold squinted up at him, his blue eyes bright in the sun and his cheeks pulled up tight to his eyelashes, his lips pursed in consideration. Jim just looked right back, frank, equally as serious as Harold seemed to be and wondering what exactly the story was behind all of this silence. “Do you like baseball?” Jim asked finally, driven to speak because the quiet was hanging there and practically visible, heavy like a summer heat wave. Andre sighed beside him and shifted on his feet.

“Harold doesn’t seem to say much,” he explained and Jim nodded, pulling his hand away and crouching down like Andre had, draping his elbows across his knees.

“A man of few words,” he commented quietly, “That is very mysterious of you, Harold,” and Jim thought the boy almost smiled, but it was hard to tell because it might have just been a flinch against the brightness of the sun. The silence lingered there for Jim to swim through, see through, and after a few moments he stood up tall and planted his hands on his hips, tilting his head, assessing the round face of the boy and the way he stood perfectly, almost inhumanly still. Andre heaved a sigh and Jim felt a grin tug at the corners of his lips. “Well, Harold,” he said warmly, “I think next week you should come play with us and maybe tell us more about yourself,” he offered, and Harold’s head tipped too, mirroring Jim’s, his eyes squinting and shining up at them, and this time the hint of a smile was clear and undisputable as he pushed past them and sprinted down the sidewalk on his quick little feet.

Jim glanced at Andre, amused, and turned back toward Bobby’s with a shrug of his broad, t-shirt covered shoulders.

“Cute kid,” he commented and Andre sort of laughed at that, chuckled.

“Yeah, you should meet his grandfather,” he answered. His shorter frame seemed dwarfed by Jim for a second as he stood motionless behind him, and his expression was pensive, quiet, considering still, as he had been for the past week. Jim raised his eyebrows and pressed his lips together in response, leading Andre to blink his thoughts back into focus. He shook his head down at the sidewalk in front of him, shrugging at Jim’s questioning expression. “Beer,” he answered decisively and Jim nodded his head.

“Beer,” he echoed, and so they headed back to Bobby’s to drink beer and eat pizza, both of them still wondering what could make a kid choose not to speak, or forget how, or maybe think he shouldn’t. They drank their beer and they ate their pizza and they decided mutually that Harold Moran needed something in his life, and that Jim and Andre were maybe the guys to bring it to him.

Somehow.

Scranton, Pennsylvania was a stranger to rain, lately. Things had that certain weight to them that only came from weeks of drought. People were starting to get that look in their eyes. Starting to have that haze, that blank stare that had probably been learned some long time ago in fields, or caves, or some other ancient place that implied that man was really more animal than anything else. People were starting to look thirsty. Dried up. Impatient for moisture as if plumbing didn’t exist and it wasn’t just watering their lawns that was at stake. People were starting to get that look in their eyes and Pam had noticed it in her own reflection.

Her mouth was dry.

Her tongue would stick to the back of her teeth or her throat would catch just a little bit and she would pause and she would notice. She was thirsty, somehow. And Scranton was much too dry.

She found her fingers fascinated by the cool perspiration on the side of the plastic cups she had brought with her, filled to the brim with strong-looking iced tea and perched on the railing like birds on a wire. She found herself smoothing the moisture out and then pressing her damp hand against the painted wood of Jim’s front porch, and she enjoyed the way that the shadow of her hand-print lingered for only a moment before sort of fading away into the warmth of the new afternoon. She was almost hypnotized by it, mostly because she desperately needed some sort of distraction. She needed something to keep her from her own panic and self consciousness, to keep her from wondering where he was and what he might be doing, why he wasn‘t home on a warm Saturday afternoon. She needed a distraction from this heat, from the dryness of things.

After all, they’d only had dinner twice since Jim had gotten back from New York, and she figured playing the part of the curious girlfriend was much too premature. She was finding that time was like a piece of taffy, cool and hard and unwilling to give into the warmth of her touch. She promised herself it would eventually loosen and soften and sit like putty in her hands, but for now, though, she still had to wait on it, work at it, pull at it and hope things would be easier soon.

Her palm swiped against the side of the cup and she sighed.

Eventually she spotted him walking down the sidewalk in the distance and she found herself taking advantage of the fact that he hadn‘t noticed her yet, hadn‘t seen her standing there with her iced tea and her self-consciousness. Her eyes traveled the length of him and she tried hard to quickly memorize the ease of his stroll, the half-grin on his lips, the way his fingers were hidden inside of the pockets of his sweatpants, and she found herself liking the form of him. She found herself comparing him to other men and considering whether anyone had ever seemed this good to her, this right and this kind, this comfortable like apple pie or this warm like an October fireplace. She wondered if she would ever know another person in the soft and gentle way she knew Jim Halpert and she thought probably not. She hoped probably not.

Finally he was only a few houses away and he picked his head up and looked her right in the eye, as if he’d felt her there or as if he somehow knew exactly where to look to find her. He picked his head up and looked her right in the eye and the half-grin on his lips spread wide and open and she felt the taffy of time soften a little, warm up and melt from the honesty of his smile.

“Hey,” he eventually greeted, once he was close enough, and she reminded herself to stand up straight and she refused to let her hands tug on the hem of her shirt the way they wanted to.

“Hi,” she replied easily, smiling back at him and enjoying the sunshine against her shoulders.

“I didn’t expect to see you today,” he murmured, stopping beside her and bending down low to lean against the porch railing, “it’s a nice surprise,” he added almost into her ear and she felt herself wanting to lean against him, press up against him, push against him until maybe she would be able to feel him in undiscovered places. He was still smiling, still warm, still all of the things she’d wanted when she’d gotten the idea to come see him this morning, and the only thing that kept her from pressing her lips against his cheek was the distraction of the sweating cups against her hand and the way the water was dripping impatiently onto her fingers.

“I’m trying out impulsive,” she explained, lying because really she’d had this planned. She lied, holding out his iced tea and offering a little curtsey along with it. He hummed his approval and tipped his head to the side, standing up straight and considering her offering.

“I like it,” he told her, reaching out for the tea and taking a long satisfying sip. His eyes seemed bright with summer and she wondered whether or not it would wear off in a few weeks. She wondered if he would get that winter look again around the fifteenth of June or the first of July, if he would darken and fade and look at her in that tired way that he’d looked at Karen in February. But she liked to imagine that maybe the summer of him now had less to do with June’s arrival and more to do with Pam. More to do with new and fresh like oranges or peaches and how her name was allowed to laugh on his tongue again now the way that it used to before. She liked to think that the summer of him was a state of mind instead of a page in a calendar.

She felt summer inside of her, too. She felt it like the relief of an ice cream cone or like that feeling of how could it have taken us this long to get here? She had childhood exuberance, she guessed. She had the fear of fall. She wondered how she looked when she looked at him and she wondered how much of her heart was on her sleeve.

They sat down on folding chairs he brought out from inside and she asked him how his morning had been. He looked pensive for a second and then he told her it was good in that way that meant something else, like something more. She squinted her eyes at him and took a sip of her tea.

“Good how?” she asked, and he chuckled, acknowledging his own transparence and her ability to know him well.

“Good like, um…coaching baseball at the Boys and Girls Club,” he explained, avoiding her smitten-type stare and pushing his feet out so that his legs were long in front of him. She blinked and shook her head.

“Wow,” she commented, “You must be tired.” That pulled his gaze up to meet hers in amusement and she lifted her eyebrows at him, waiting for a response.

“It is definitely tiring, yeah,” he admitted and she nodded, still sipping out of her straw and still wondering how many things she didn’t know about him, how much of herself was mysterious the way that so much of him seemed to be.

“I had no idea you did that,” she told him, speaking some of her thoughts out loud and saving some for later, feeling her awkwardness and her haunting lack of confidence tickling her tone.

“I don’t, normally,” he was quick to assure her, and that admittance brought relief to the core of her because really she liked to think she knew him well enough to know things like coaching baseball on Saturday mornings or playing hockey on Monday nights. She imagined she knew his spare time, at least a little. “My friend Andre works over there and was sort of in a bind, so I’m helping him out for a few weeks.”

“Ah,” she sighed out in answer, nodding, watching the laziness of the street and the way the oak trees cast big disjointed afternoon shadows over the blacktop. Silence lingered while he watched her watch the street and she pretended not to notice.

And for a while they just sat there, with summer and iced tea and sunshine and sidewalks, and she was hot despite the shade and thirsty despite her drink and neither of them spoke. And time was like cooled off taffy in the palm of her shaking hand.

“I like your sneakers,” he told her, tapping at the toe of her left foot with his right one, and she lifted her feet up into the air so that the pale pink of her Keds could bake for a second in the sunlight.

“Thank you!” she responded happily, smiling and showing them off with pointed toes. “My old ones are totally jealous,” she admitted and he blew out a soft sort of whistle.

“I’m sure they are. These are very, very stylish, Pam. Bold choice.”

And she looked at him knowingly and nodded in agreement, liking the way the afternoon light tripped against his new haircut and pulled that certain kind of mischievous green to his eyes. She liked the way he was watching her carefully with visible intention and she liked the way that they were starting over like this. She smiled.

“I almost bought red,” she admitted, “but that seemed like too much.”

And he shook his head with an impressed kind of grin and then they sat there, content and mostly quiet, with time sticky and heavy in Pam’s overheated hand.

******

The weekend turned into Monday much too soon and everything was still static and hot. Everything was still heavy and without rain and full of paper and phones and shirts and ties, and Jim Halpert found himself day dreaming about other places. He found himself thinking about taller buildings with air conditioned rooms and places where paper was seriously just a thing people wrote on, and then when he realized he might be thinking of New York he felt guilt and a hint of regret and so he focused on simpler someplace else‘s. He focused hard on imagining the sounds of little feet slamming against the canvas of bases and early morning Saturday laughter and he thought of how much he wanted to touch Pam Beesly. He thought about that a lot. His hands itched with it and pulsed with it and he watched her at her desk sometimes because he would imagine pushing his unsure fingers through her hair. The heat made him hungry for her, not that he hadn’t known hunger before, but something about this particular lack of rain pointed out to him how much he really had not known of her, how much he hadn’t yet discovered and how thirsty he was.

He never thought things would be so impossible. Transitions. Waiting.

Eventually Pam had to step over her own lines, he figured. But patience was a rare and mysterious commodity, and he kept forgetting what exactly it felt like.

So, when five o’clock came, his itching hands and his inner hunger for her pulled him up to lean against her desk, and she grinned up at him carefully.

He wished she would be less careful.

“Pam Beesly,” he greeted and she nodded at him like she was confirming that, yes, that was indeed her name. “How do you feel about pizza and beer?” he wondered and her smile got a little bit wider and he figured maybe she didn’t realize that he was inviting her other places too, more hazy places that were cloaked in memories and his past, places that normally he figured might scare her with their weight and importance.

“I am decidedly pro,” she responded and he clapped his hands down on the desktop victoriously.

“Great because I have a place I want to take you,” and suddenly it was like the true weight of this brushed its fingers against her back or whispered hints of itself into her mind’s ear because she sort of narrowed her eyes at him as she reached down to pick up her purse. But then she agreed despite her hesitation and that was really the thing in her that was keeping this slow-plodding, awkward and almost non-existant romance afloat. That was really the thing about her that made his blood sort of hum in his veins and made him invite her places, ask her things, daydream about her hair and her face and her hopes and her future. It was her persistence in the face of adversity, in the face of her fears, her gentle and quiet persistence that kept him following after her and waiting for the dam to break.

He followed her into the elevator and he grinned at her when they reached the bottom floor, raising his eyebrows at her look of wary determination. When she started to turn toward his car he promised her they could walk, and he felt the hands of the air pressing down on his shoulders so that he leaned with the weight of it, his arm accidentally brushing light and careful against hers. Something electric slipped fast down his spine, and he wondered if the universe was trying to tell him something. But he still owned his fear like a dog who had been swatted with a newspaper, and every time he thought of kissing her he felt the fists of his past holding him back. He figured he was waiting for something more than a haphazard confession on the unreliability of sand, like he wanted concrete and solid and sure and defined before he pressed his mouth up against hers, before he grabbed onto her and assumed she would stay. He wanted something else from her, and he would wait, he would follow and he would give her things, hints, hopes, memories, and he would learn some kind of patience, somehow.

They walked in relative quiet, chatting about Michael and corporate and how his lunch meeting had gone,

until eventually they passed by Harold’s front yard and Jim found himself slowing on his feet at the sight of the boy crouched down in concentration and wielding an impressively muddy-looking stick. He was digging it deep into the yard, his brow tight with seriousness. Glancing at Pam, Jim shoved his hands in his pockets and stood there a moment, watching.

“Hey, Harold, how‘s it going?” he eventually greeted. The boy froze without looking up and Jim was finding it more and more remarkable that his own curiosity and interest in this kid and this place seemed to be climbing as time went by. Jim looked over his shoulder at Pam and offered her a look of resignation, but he found that her eyes were not on him but were fixed solidly on Harold and flashing that electricity of interest that he usually only saw in her during art projects or pranks. “Harold doesn’t talk much,” Jim explained, “like, at all,” and Pam nodded her head slowly, taking a step closer to the yard and crouching down so that she could peer beneath the curtain of the boy’s bangs and see the twinkle of curiosity in his seven year old eyes.

“Hi Harold,” she muttered with her voice velvet quiet and with her face cool and serene and looking somehow like the water that was so hesitant to fall from the sky these days, “It looks like you’ve been working really hard here,” she assessed. Jim watched, surprised, as Harold’s head bobbed in confirmation. Harold never really responded much, so even this slight motion, to Jim, seemed like he‘d spoken paragraphs. “You must be hot,” she added and Harold’s head bobbed again, nodding down at the ground while his tongue licked at his lips like maybe he had the hint of words for a moment. “Me too,” she promised, pausing, glancing down at the ground for only a brief moment before gazing up again at Harold’s round face. She squinted at him, concentrated, thought for a second before speaking again, and then eventually she said: “I think you’re doing a really good job,” simply, gently, reaching out careful and pressing the palm of her hand against his shoulder.

She was somehow utterly unaware of the way Jim had stopped breathing. She was somehow utterly unaware that it seemed Harold was inches or moments from responding, like he was maybe ready to speak, or waiting to answer her. Harold picked his head up and looked her in the eye and she smiled at him before standing and glancing over her shoulder at Jim, shrugging as if she hadn’t just been…more, somehow, than everybody else, closer somehow to hearing the voice of Harold Moran. Jim raised his eyebrows at her.

“We’re going to go, but we’ll see you later Harold,” Pam said calmly and Jim shook his head, trying to dislodge the shock and hunger for sound that he could feel dripping from his face.

They turned and headed down the sidewalk and she was quiet for a while with Jim following suit because that was mostly what he did these days. Eventually, though, she spoke, offering a simple sounding “I like him,” that made Jim chuckle down at his shoes.

“Yeah me too,” he answered, smiling to himself until finally they landed at Bobby’s and he paused outside the door. “Ok,” he started, “now, the guy who owns this place has known me since I was a kid…” Pam grinned up at him and waited. “So just, I don’t know,” he sighed, “ignore everything he says,” he instructed her and she laughed and nodded her acceptance as he held open the door and watched her walk through, his stomach fluttering and nervous, unsure.

And he gave her his past here, and he hoped that would loosen her tongue or soften her to him somehow, the way she‘d been soft with Harold. He hoped this would help things heal, or somehow help things change.